Reaction (Wildfire Chronicles Volume 6)

by K. R. Griffiths

  Michael sighed.

  “Of course I don’t want to. I don’t want any of this,” he said bitterly. "I wanted to be a husband and a father, and to spend my life helping people. I wanted to be a good police officer and have a normal life. This is as far from what I want as it’s possible to get. I-”

  “He’s my fucking brother. He’s coming. Unless you’re prepared to kill him?”

  Rachel’s eyes flashed dangerously, and the emphasis in her words was unmistakable. Gwyneth.

  “You’d better be prepared to kill me as well if that’s the case.”

  Michael’s shoulders slumped.

  And then went rigid.

  In the distance, somewhere to the west, a huge rumbling noise ripped apart the tense silence, roaring for several terrifying seconds before dying away, like an advance warning of an impending earthquake.

  Wylfa.

  Michael stared at the sky above the castle. Somewhere beyond it, something on Anglesey was pouring a thick column of black smoke into the darkening sky.

  She’s right. We have to move.

  After a moment Michael stood, and glanced around the group.

  Everyone was looking at him with hope on their faces. Waiting for him to tell them what to do.

  Relying on me.

  “Darren Oliver left a bus at the outskirts of town. Our best hope is to find it and get the fuck out of here. If we can’t find it, we’ll find another. Find something. Anything bigger than a car, something that won’t fall apart if—when—we have to drive through some Infected.”

  All those faces staring at him. All those eyes.

  He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be until he saw them being torn out.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 39

  “The creature is on board the ship, Sir.”

  Fred detected a tremble in the soldier’s voice, and felt it replicated in his own aged nerves. It had been a long time since he had felt anything resembling actual fear. The sensation was almost as bewildering as it was infuriating.

  Two of the ships in the fleet were now slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean, but the second time he had ordered a destroyer to fire on its own people the protests over the radio had been long and loud. They had acquiesced, finally, but had made it clear that there wouldn’t be a third time.

  Fred’s position had been weakened irrevocably, and his obsession with Jake McIntosh had taken his eye off the ball. He had no control over the soldiers now; no leverage. The end would be weak and humbling. Mortifying. Even worse than the prospect of McIntosh tearing him limb from limb was the reality that the days of Fred’s orders being followed were officially over.

  Already several of the smaller ships in the fleet were fleeing. Precious few knew anything about the mutation, but they didn’t need to; the only knowledge required was that the world had gone to shit and now the destroyers that were supposed to protect them had instead begun to sink them.

  At least Isabelle is on one of those ships.

  The thought surprised Fred a little. His daughter was a deluded imbecile, raised by money and parental absence to remain a selfish child forever. If she was to be his legacy, after everything he had accomplished, then his failure truly was monumental. The fact that he actually hoped she would survive merely underlined the hopelessness of it all.

  “Sir?”

  Several of the crew that had been on the bridge of the Conqueror had already fled. The couple that remained were, Fred suspected, not loyal so much as paralysed by their own stupidity. A life of following orders had left them unable to think for themselves. Doubtless, they were praying that Fred would order them to join the evacuation that they so dearly wanted to be a part of.

  Fuck them.

  “I want my helicopter ready to go in ninety seconds,” Fred barked.

  “Uh…there aren’t many pilots left, Sir.”

  “I only need one,” Fred snapped. “Where are they?”

  His voice was rising in pitch, slipping away from his control. The sound of it in his own ears made him cringe. He sounded weak and pathetic. Frightened.

  The soldier pointed silently at the window.

  Outside, Fred saw a couple of choppers and a handful of the Harrier jets lifting off.

  That's where the pilots are. Fleeing. Leaving me to die.

  “What about you?” Fred snarled. “Can you fly a helicopter?”

  The soldier shook his head slowly.

  “Then what fucking good are you to me?” Fred screamed, and he pulled out his revolver and put a hole in the man’s sweat-drenched forehead. Turning sharply, he pointed the gun at the only crew member left on the bridge.

  There was no point asking if the man could pilot anything; Fred knew exactly what the response would be.

  Still got one hand left to play. All in, old boy, and let the chips fall where they may. Impetuous, indeed.

  Fred moved to a glass cabinet on the wall next to the door and smashed it with the butt of his revolver, withdrawing a gas mask and slipping it over his face.

  “Turn on the gas,” he snarled. “And stay out of the lower decks if you want to survive.”

  The soldier stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment.

  “Sir, shouldn’t we all be evacuati—”

  Fred turned on his heel and strode from the bridge before the man could finish.

  "I said turn on the gas," he snarled over his shoulder. In all likelihood, he thought, it was the last order he would ever give.

  So be it.

  It was a long walk to the engine room, and Fred knew that McIntosh was down there in the dark somewhere, prowling around the maze of steel corridors like the mythical Minotaur, so he moved cautiously at first, and only began to quicken his pace when he heard the hissing of the poisonous gas that seeped from the air vents.

  The gas would clear McIntosh out of the lower decks, he was certain. At least for long enough to allow Fred to make his way to the twin nuclear reactors that powered the ship. Long enough to arm the device that represented Fred Sullivan’s final move in the great game.

  Death wasn’t to be feared; death was nothing. Being bested—especially by a sub-human creature like Jake McIntosh—was another thing entirely. A legacy of failure. Utterly unacceptable.

  The final word would belong to Fred Sullivan.

  It always had.

  *

  Gas.

  The old fucker was cunning all right, but it seemed he lacked a true understanding of just what Jake was. His ears caught the clicking of the air vents almost before it happened, and he heard the first puff of the toxic air as it wheezed from the ship long before it had any chance of reaching his lungs and doing any damage.

  Somewhere high above him, Jake heard the clamour of humans and smelled the fear upon them, a ripe stink far stronger to Jake’s sensitive nose than Sullivan’s invisible attempt at an execution.

  No point in conserving energy now.

  With a grunt, Jake squatted low, tensing the muscles in his calves, and launched himself upwards, bursting through the ceiling and onto the deck above. His feet barely touched the cool metal floor before he pounced again, using his extraordinary momentum to drive up through the decks of the aircraft carrier like a spear thrown up from the depths of Hell itself.

  Somewhere below him, the gas slowly expanded into the vacuum, as slow and pointless as a lifetime. Nothing Fred Sullivan did could threaten Jake. Not now. Gas was a pathetic last resort. A weapon that even a human could outrun if they saw it coming.

  With a roar, Jake exploded into the open air and landed on the flight deck to see humans scurrying before him like insects; delicious in their terror; fleeing for the aircraft that could not possibly save them.

  Some of the aircraft were already airborne; beyond his reach, but he saw a helicopter lifting off slowly and launched himself toward it, catching the vehicle’s skids in one massive hand and dragging the thing back down, launching it across the deck like a dart at a row of parked je
ts.

  Screams.

  Explosions.

  Delightful.

  Jake let out a high-pitched shriek and began the dance, crashing around the deck like a pinball fired from a rocket launcher, tearing and biting and killing. It was like moving through a field of statues. Many of the soldiers on the deck died before their expressions had even changed from confusion to fright.

  It was killing for the sake of killing, and Jake barely derived any pleasure from it. There was no enjoyment in the feel of their pulsing organs or the warm torrents of blood that drenched his hands. Jake had never been what the authorities termed a mission killer; there was no underlying purpose to his murders, nothing beyond the burning desire to open up the human body and play with the innards; to inflict pain because pain was so much damn fun.

  This, though, was different, and the murder of dozens of soldiers was tainted; ruined by the mission he now felt compelled to complete.

  He ripped the head off a fleeing woman and tossed it across the sea at one of the distant retreating ships like cannon fire and bellowed in frustration.

  “Ssssssssulllivannnnnnn!”

  The old bastard wasn’t on the ship; probably he never had been. He had out-thought Jake once more, luring him toward the obvious target and now he was out there somewhere, on any one of a dozen or more ships that scattered like dust on the wind. Even with his astonishing speed, Jake knew he could not hunt down all of the vessels. The blood that sustained him was like sucking in a lungful of cocaine; the energy burned bright and fast. It needed to be replenished constantly to operate at the level he required to destroy an entire fleet. Maybe he could decimate a handful of the ships, but by the time he had worked his way through them, the others would be gone; adrift on the vast ocean and lost to him forever.

  An atomic blast of rage rocked through him at the notion that he, too, would be left to drift, too far from land to swim without fatigue overcoming him. Mindlessly, shrieking like one of the pathetic Infected that had inherited the Earth, Jake began to strike out, smashing holes into the deck and destroying the remaining aircraft.

  “A temper tantrum. What a waste of such enormous potential, Misters McIntosh.”

  The voice behind him made Jake freeze. Deep and gravelly, grooves cut deep into the tone by the decades.

  He turned slowly, expecting to find that the old man had cornered him in some unforeseen trap after all, but all he saw was Fred Sullivan, alone on the deck and still wearing a ridiculous silver suit, pointing a pathetic excuse for a firearm at him.

  *

  Fred saw the trembling of his hand; saw the barrel of the revolver shaking. If he had any intention of firing the weapon, it might have been a cause for concern.

  The mutation rumbled a laugh.

  “Do you know how many bullets I’ve had fired at me today, Sullivan?”

  “More than the six I have, I’m sure. I—”

  Fred blinked.

  The hand that held the pistol out in front of him was gone. The whole arm was gone. The realisation hit before the pain did; the sickening knowledge that he hadn’t even seen the creature move, and yet there it stood, twenty yards away, gnawing at his dismembered arm like it was a strip of jerky.

  Fred collapsed, darkly fascinated by the stump where his left arm had been; by the jet of blood that spurted from it. It looked like all the blood a human body could possibly hold.

  And suddenly the mutation was hovering above his face, leaning in close, breathing the stench of death and rotten meat across Fred’s face, making him gag.

  “Well, come on, then,” Fred snarled. “You move fast. So get it over with.”

  The mutation laughed, and regarded Fred with inhuman eyes that seemed incapable of displaying mirth.

  “You get to go slow, old man. Your sanity will be long gone before I let you die.”

  Fred tried to pull away in horror as the creature reached its massive, deformed hand slowly toward his face, and only when he felt an almost tender pinching at his hairline did he understand, and he began to scream as Jake McIntosh slowly and precisely peeled his face off.

  Fred felt his mind beginning to break as he watched the creature consuming his flesh and realised that the reason he couldn’t shut his eyes to block out the hideous sight was because his eyelids were gone; torn away, leaving him powerless to avert his gaze.

  Fred laughed.

  A high-pitched giggle that hadn’t been the tone he had aimed for, but which had the desired effect. McIntosh reared backwards a little. Fred thought he saw confusion on the fearful features; as much as the twisted muscles of the creature’s face would allow.

  “Such a fast mover,” Fred wheezed through the blood in his mouth. “Extraordinary speed in every muscle except the one that counts. I wonder if there’s anything on Earth you can’t outrun.”

  As final words went, Fred thought they were unremarkable, petty and vindictive, but it wasn’t his words that mattered, not now. It was the small remote control in the palm of his remaining hand. The one that had only a single button.

  Fred’s thumb was on the button; had been from the moment he stepped out onto the deck and took what he knew would be his last breaths. He had seen the future of humanity, and he had taken steps to ensure that the terrible future brewing for the denizens of Earth would be averted, but now, at long last, he was done.

  Let the fuckers fight over what remained. Wildfire wasn’t going anywhere; Wildfire was all there was now. Just Wildfire and Fred Sullivan's determination to ensure that a deformed monster like Jake McIntosh didn’t wind up as the winner of anything.

  As the mutation’s eyes widened in fearful understanding, Fred released the button on the tiny, insignificant piece of plastic clutched in his palm, and the explosive charges that were his ultimate contingency plan drove teeth of fire into the Conqueror’s nuclear engine, and the world became pain and bright, unending white light.

  *

  Kyle Robinson was standing on the deck of the decommissioned destroyer Portsmouth Charger as it travelled southwest at full speed, staring back at the scattering fleet when the Conqueror became a searing ball of light. By the time the roar of the detonation reached his ears, the flash had already blinded Kyle, burning the nerves in his eyes to a crisp before he could even think to look away.

  The explosion was enormous, engulfing several of the ships that had been too slow to flee, creating a chain reaction of smaller explosions, and giving birth to a tidal wave that smashed against the hull of the Portsmouth several seconds later.

  Kyle began to fall as the ship rode the huge wave, before hands caught him in the sudden darkness and hauled him upright.

  “Got you, brother.”

  Tears streamed down Kyle’s face.

  “I’m blind,” he sobbed, and heard a grunt of acknowledgement.

  “I’d say that puts you in the majority, now.”

  Kyle couldn’t decide if the noise that ripped from his throat in response wanted to be a laugh or a sob or a fuck you. Maybe a little of each.

  He could still feel the staggering heat of the explosion, racing along the waves behind the Portsmouth, but falling behind as the ship powered forward, heading south.

  Nothing could possibly have survived the destruction of the fleet's core. In a way, Tom’s mission had finally been accomplished. Project Wildfire—whatever the hell it had twisted into at the end; something insane—and those behind it, had been wiped from the face of the Earth. Only its pitiful creations remained, and they too would surely die out in time.

  After a moment he felt Tom guiding his hands to the rail, and Kyle steadied himself against it. He could feel his brother’s presence right next to him, staring out to sea, but Kyle could not make out anything against the dark canvas that had been draped across his eyes: no shapes, no colours; not even the flash of movement as Tom held something aloft to catch the fading light.

  “It’s beautiful,” Tom whispered softly. “Perfect.”

  Kyle thought he detected s
omething strange in his brother’s tone; something troubling. It didn’t sound like he was talking about the view.

  “Come on,” Tom said. “Let’s get you inside and have a doctor take a look at you.”

  Kyle nodded and let Tom lead him slowly away from the deck.

  Chapter 40

  It took around half an hour to find the bus that Darren Oliver had mentioned.

  The vehicle was abandoned at the northern outskirts of town, presumably because it was far too large to successfully navigate through the narrow, winding streets of Caernarfon. Michael recalled his attempts to steer a police car around similar streets in St. Davids, and the bittersweet memory of Carl’s frustration each morning at the delays in getting him to what he called ‘a proper breakfast’ made him smile sadly.

  The survivors had moved slowly and cautiously through the streets, pausing every few yards so that Michael could check Jason’s blank face for some sign that there were Infected nearby. Jason remained impassive, staring at whatever horizon his eyes saw, and Michael slowly allowed himself to accept that Caernarfon had been cleared of the monsters at last.

  For a while, at least. More would come. They always did.

  When they found it, abandoned in the middle of the road that led to the east, the front of the bus was covered in blood. It was just as Darren had described it: his journey to Caernarfon had included Infected throwing themselves in front of the vehicle, but the bus was sturdy enough to survive the suicide attacks and didn’t look too badly damaged. When the number of Infected had threatened to finally overwhelm the bus, Darren had got lucky, stumbling across a mutation that might have saved them all if the man could have brought himself to treat it like a sick human rather than an animal.

  Michael had blamed Darren for that at the time, but things had become more complicated since then, and the notions of right and wrong he had struggled so desperately to cling to had become slippery; as elusive as smoke. He wasn’t sure any of it was important now. Only survival mattered.